The Science and Fiction of Petascale Analytics

Scientists are trying to understand dark matter, discover distant galaxies, hunt for the Higgs boson, detect asteroids, and take movies of molecules. Their science is fascinating, their data sizes are enormous, and their analysis requirements may seem like science fiction. Few have experienced the reality of petascale analytics so far, but everybody, including you, will face it tomorrow. Are we ready?

Jacek Becla

Stanford Linear Accelerator Center

Jacek Becla works with different scientific communities
ranging from high energy physics, through astronomy to
photon science, helping them use database technology for
managing and analyzing their massive data sets. He was
one of the key people that designed and built world’s
largest database for BaBar, and he now leads the design
of the 100 petabyte LSST database. He is actively trying
to bridge the gap between science and industry. In 2007
he organized a successful workshop on Extremely Large
Databases to stimulate collaboration between scientific
and industrial users, database vendors and academia.